SBIR Phase I: Mixed reality wearable technology to improve workflow, productivity, and training in medical sterilization environments

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to help hospitals improve their sterile processing departments (SPD), where decontamination, sterilization, and assembly of medical equipment and devices occur. The company’s proposed solution seeks to enhance SPD technicians’ work performance and skill levels, decrease SPDs’ operating costs, reduce Hospital Associated Infections (HAI) and Surgical Site Infections (SSI), lessen expensive surgical delays, and reduce related healthcare service delivery costs.

Sterile processing technicians play a critical role in preventing infection by sterilizing, cleaning, processing, assembling, storing, and distributing medical supplies. They are directly responsible for disinfection and sterilization of hospital instruments/devices. The team uses mixed reality designed to augment the day-to-day work responsibilities of SPD technicians while supporting the cost-effectiveness of operating a SPD.

The solution’s digital content and holograms provide an immersive experience increasing competency, maximizing workflow, and boosting productivity.

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project incorporates three applications into augmented reality hardware to enhance the job performance of sterile processing department (SPD) technicians. The applications include barcode/radio frequency identification (RFID) reading, traceability and surgical instrument detection, and inspection utilizing Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO).

These applications are designed to provide efficient and accurate tracking, improved workflow, and increased worker productivity. The research goals of the project include creating a software application programming interface (API) capable of reading barcodes and RFID tags. By providing additional monitoring and tracking capabilities with automated data within the users' field of view and creating an application to enhance object detection capabilities, SPDs in hospitals, doctors' offices and at-home care locations can learn, in real time, the best practices for sterilization of infected surfaces to enable safer and healthier living and work spaces.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.